To march with an army was like traveling with a city. Women and men by the thousand flowed across the land in great columns, stretching from horizon to horizon. With them, in smaller mobile districts of their own, came blacksmiths, fletchers, enchanters, cobblers, tailors and merchants, alongside those with wares less critical to the war, with wagons that doubled as taverns or brothels. Interspersed among all of these were the great supply trains, circling endlessly—loaded down with food and the million other things needed for life on campaign—between the Plegian navy docked in Brass Gate and the front lines. The lifeblood of a global beast whose arteries stretched from Valm, across the ocean and back to its beating heart in Archanea.
When night fell, these rivers of humanity slowed—though never stopped completely—and sprawled out into more conventional cities of canvas and tent stakes. In these moments of rest, the Shepherds' camp became an island in the cacophony of an army preparing to sleep. It wasn't any less hectic than the rest of the Coalition, the sounds of weapons being cleaned and sharpened still competed with raucous laughter and intoxicated singing, but the familiarity in the surrounding faces brought with it an unexpected comfort.
And if the Shepherds were an island in the sea of chaos, then Lucina's little enclave was an oasis.
They'd pitched their tents off to one side of the Shepherds' large mess tent—which naturally became the focal point of the camp—using one of its sagging walls as a barrier to put their backs to. Their tents formed a semicircle abutting it, creating a cozy area at their center that was almost completely isolated from the rest of the world.
Lucina perched on the mossy trunk of a fallen tree they'd found, warming herself by a crackling fire. It still made her uneasy. The bright flame could be seen for miles in the fading light of dusk. Any Risen out there would be drawn to it like moths.
Next to her, Severa and Kjelle bickered good-naturedly over the amount of spices to add to a bubbling cauldron of stew. Of course, Severa had a specific recipe in mind that she insisted they follow, while Kjelle wanted to experiment. They'd come to a comprise eventually. Regardless, from smell alone, Lucina knew their supper would be delicious.
Noire had felled one of the medium-sized boar that seemed to replace deer as a desired game animal in this region, unlike back in the Halidom. They were also more wily than the deer, something that Yarne had discovered first hand. He'd only returned with some foraged vegetables and swiftly darkening bruises on his legs. He was sulking on the opposite side of the fire, something he always did when Noire beat him in their unspoken hunting competitions.
She was currently huddled to one side with Laurent, helping him salt and preserve the portion of the meat that hadn't gone into tonight's stew. It was all so comfortably familiar, like how it had been before. But Lucina felt discontent unfurling into misery within her. This was an illusion of nostalgia, only serving to bring into painful focus what was missing.
Absent was Inigo recounting a tale from his bottomless well of stories, peppered by interruptions as Owain took it upon himself to describe the fight scenes in wholly unnecessary detail. Absent was Brady mothering them all over their cuts and scapes, and Gerome trying his hardest to look aloof while shamelessly pampering Minerva.
Absent was Cynthia.
Lucina touched the breast pocket of her jacket. It had been empty for two years now, but the weight—lack of weight—was something she could never get used to. It was something she wouldn't let herself get used to.
Every day, she woke up terrified that she'd forget her sister's laugh, the sound of her voice. It had happened with her parents, the years slowly wearing down the sharpness of her memories of them.
Cynthia would have been everywhere at once. Grooming Sooty one minute, teasing Gerome and Brady the next. She'd have laughed herself silly over Yarne's hunting failure, and instead of embarrassment, it would have drawn him into a few self-deprecating chuckles of his own. You could never mistake anything Cynthia did as mean-spirited.
She'd have recognized Lucina's melancholy, and not given her a chance to dwell on it. Cynthia would insist on Lucina braiding her hair, or helping her work fresh ink into it. She'd break out their one set of lacquered wooden cards to play round after round of Fetters; a game they were both laughably bad at. They'd invent increasingly ridiculous rules until Severa would yell at them to stop 'bastardizing a time-honored and noble pursuit.'
Lucina was jarred out of slipping further into depression by a steaming bowl of stew being thrust into her hands.
Severa arched an eyebrow at her. "If you keep frowning, your face will stick like that. Didn't anyone ever tell you that when you were a child?"
"No," Lucina grumbled. "I only learned to really frown after I became an adult."
There were other, equally petulant responses she had at the ready, but they were washed away as she downed a heaping spoonful of the stew. She had to physically force down a sigh of delight. Kjelle would have taken it as a compliment, but Severa would have just scolded her for poor manners.
Growing up with a father like Sir Stahl, a talent for all things culinary practically ran in Kjelle's blood. And having parents who regularly forgot to feed themselves, Severa was no slouch over a cook fire either. But when ingredients were scarce, and firelight was dangerous, a skilled chef could only do so much. When you only had squirrel meat, hard apples and a few pinches of salt, the first casualty was usually flavor.
Here, however, in this world of abundance, they'd been able to return to what they had learned cooking for, and with, their families, like a boxer who'd had one hand tied behind her back, suddenly set free. The mere existence of more allowed them to revert an aspect of survival back into simple, enjoyable cooking, with mouthwatering results.
Severa nudged her. "They will be here with us again soon, princess. Word of the Coalition seizing Brass Gate will have spread across the whole continent by now. Wherever they are, they know that the Shepherds are in Valm. Now they just need to make their way to us."
Lucina poked at a chunk of boar meat with her spoon. "Except they should already be here. We'll be crossing into Rosanne tomorrow. Gerome knows the exact dates of every Coalition battle during the war, and he knows what's going to happen to his parents once we reach Lazure. They might not have been able to find passage across the ocean to reach us, but he'd move mountains in order to be here for his father's trial. Something is keeping them away, unless…"
Severa's long red hair—pulled back into its customary twin tails—swished back and forth as she shook her head. "If the Gateway sent them to around the same time it sent us, they would have arrived in the middle of the Empire's invasion of Chon'sin and Zofia. It took us over a year to find each other in our own countries. There is no reason to think that the others haven't run into similar problems." She touched Lucina's shoulder. "Don't assume the worst."
Kjelle laughed from where she was doling out supper. "They've probably just been held up by Inigo trying to seduce every woman he meets."
"Only Gerome speaks the languages here," Noire added. "I was so overwhelmed when I first arrived, I can't imagine how much harder it would have been if I couldn't understand anyone, as well."
They were trying to cheer her up, like they always did. And, like always, Lucina wanted nothing more than to get away. She couldn't apologize for her mood, that would only make the others pity her more. They all had their own troubles to deal with, being reunited with their parents. And here she was, sulking, making them feel responsible for her gloom. She was supposed to be a leader, not one more emotional burden for everyone else to deal with.
Before she could do anything, Yarne stammered, "L-Let me guess. Now you're thinking that it's still somehow your fault."
"It is my fault," Lucina shot back. "It was my job to choose an endpoint. Instead, I managed to scatter you across the world. You're right, there might be a thousand reasons why they haven't been able to join us yet, but I'm the reason we didn't arrive in the Halidom, together, in the first place!"
Infuriatingly, this elicited a chuckle from Kjelle. "You brought us back in time, without going insane yourself, and you're kicking yourself over the dismount? Only you, princess. Go on, tell her, Laurent."
"Yes, well…" Laurent gave his bowl of stew a longing look, before setting it aside and straightening his glasses. "I still can't even begin to theorize how the Gateway actually functioned, but you don't have to give it too much thought to understand how astronomically unlikely it is for any of us to even be standing here today—on this today.
"With only—at most—one year's inaccuracy for each of us, we managed to travel back nearly two-and-a-half decades! True, we didn't ultimately all end up in southern Ylisse like we planned, but the fact that each of us present disembarked from the spell unharmed, on land—"
"Most of us," Kjelle interrupted. "Most of us fell on dry land."
"Right, of course. But you were relatively close to the coast."
"Didn't feel 'relative.'"
Laurent tried to pin her with a withering look, which had zero effect. "Ahem, yes. What I'm trying to say is that we could have ended up in the middle of the Archanean. In fact, it should have been a more likely outcome, since the surface of our world is mostly water. Or we could have been transported into the center of a mountain, or deep underground. And that's not even factoring in the rotation of our planet. Oh! Or its orbit around our sun. Just think what—"
His increasing excitement was cut off again, this time by Severa. "What he's trying to say, dear, is that it is a miracle that we succeeded at all." Laurent looked as if he were about to argue, no doubt over the term 'miracle,' but Severa froze him with a far more effective glare, before continuing to Lucina, "Think about how much could have gone wrong, but it didn't."
"We made what should have been an impossible shot, and still hit our mark," Noire added. "We can't just ignore that because it wasn't a bullseye."
Severa inclined her head to Noire, before turning back to Lucina. "We arrived safely, so it is not unlikely that your sister and the others did as well. The six of us found each other. Now, we just need to do that again."
Lucina opened her mouth, a halfhearted retort on her tongue, when she noticed Yarne's ears beginning to twitch. He cocked his head to one side, listening, then jumped when he realized everyone's attention had turned to him.
"Ahh, umm…" he mumbled, wringing his hands nervously. "Sorry to interrupt, but someone's coming this way… It's Sir Robin."
Nobody moved from where they were sitting, but a palpable alertness spread to each of them.
"Does he have any weapons?" asked Noire.
Yarne's nose flared as he sniffed at the air. "I don't smell any lyric on him, so he probably doesn't have his tome with him. He might have steel, like a dagger. The enchantments on his coat smell… strange. They make it hard to be more exact."
"Not that it would matter whether or not he has a spellbook, apparently," Severa said. She leaned over to pluck out the knife she and Kjelle had been using to chop vegetables from where it was rammed into the top of the log, hiding it under her thigh.
Laurent opened up one of his own tomes, propping it behind his traveling pack in a position that couldn't be seen from the gap in the tents that they used as an entrance to their camp. Noire wiped salt crystals from her hands with a rag, casually repositioning the dagger on her belt so it would be easier to draw. Yarne fidgeted, seemingly unable to decide whether to have his Beaststone out in his hand, or tucked away in the pouch on his waist.
Only Lucina and Kjelle didn't make any obvious moves for their weapons. Lucina continued eating, trying not to let herself be too grateful at the distraction from the conversation. Kjelle sauntered back to her cauldron of stew, and was in the process of stirring it with a copper ladle when a knock sounded from one of the tent stakes outside.
After one more loud knock, Robin strolled into their midst.
He looked around to each of the others in turn, as if making a point to let them know he saw their weapons. His eyes even briefly flicked to the pack Laurent had hidden his spellbook behind, treating him to a knowing raise of his eyebrows. Finally, his gaze settled on Lucina. She met it with a disinterested look of her own, as she blew across the top of a spoon laden with stew.
"We have a bit of a problem," he said into the hostile silence. "I doubt we'll be able to work it all out tonight, but it's time we came to some sort of understanding."
Lucina took a bite of stew, gesturing at him with her now-empty spoon to get on with it.
He gave her a truly infuriating grin, then continued, "All of you have an issue with me. Some have been more… forward about it than others"—here he unconsciously rubbed at his neck, giving her the opening to deliver a saccharine smile of her own. Her mood grew a degree more cheerful as he realized what he'd done, responding to her with a scowl—"but I know you all don't like me very much.
"Now, I don't much care one way or the other. I didn't plan on leaving here friends, but in two days we'll be facing the Empire. You don't have to like me, but you do have to follow my orders. And I have to trust that you won't go off and do whatever you want as soon as my back is turned."
Laurent removed his spectacles, polishing them on a handkerchief. "We've already been in battle alongside you and the old Shepherds against the Valmese… sir. And against the Risen, as well. We made a good accounting of ourselves at each occasion, I believe."
Robin nodded. "You did. I'm not arguing that. And please, don't call me 'sir.' But the last two engagements with the Empire aren't anything like what's coming. The battle on the Archanean was a naval action that we just happened to be a part of, and taking The Melody was lots of fighting through narrow hallways. The civilian leadership of Brass Gate surrendered before it could turn into anything worse.
"And, as I recall, you specifically ignored our formations when fighting on Carrion Isle, and the princess here second guessed just about every word that came out of my mouth. That's something we can't afford anymore. How many of you have actually been in a full-scale battle between two armies?"
Lucina wanted to be furious with the tactician, but knew that the question was asked without a hint of condescension. He was asking because he needed to know.
As soon as he'd asked it, however, she felt Severa stiffened next to her; rotating on the log and hunching down closer to the fire, completely exiting the conversation. Lucina had to fight the desire to join her, as her stomach twisted into a knot.
She remembered that day in the Bellows, desperately holding back Severa. Her friend screaming at a man on horseback as he turned to face the unending horde. She remembered recognizing the exact moment the kingdom she was supposed to protect collapsed around her.
"I have," Kjelle said with a shrug. As always, the casualness she exudes when talking about the battle amazed Lucina.
Noire was less calm. She turned pale and raised her hand meekly. "I have, as well."
"I haven't experienced it," Laurent admitted. "To my own fortune, I believe."
Yarne gave Noire a worried glance. "Me neither," he mumbled.
Robin looked to Lucina. She looked away.
"I've only seen the very end of a battle," she said to the ground.
Robin cleared his throat awkwardly. Obviously he hadn't expected this reaction from a simple question. "I… I think you've seen enough to know what I'm talking about."
She raised her head again, forcing away the memories. To her surprise, he was looking at Severa with what appeared to be genuine concern in his eyes.
"That's what we've been marching towards, then?" Lucina asked, turning his attention back to her.
"Yes. We'll meet just over half of the Empire's strength in Rosanne—plus several thousand of the retreating forces that occupied Zofia—at a place called Charmony Field the day after tomorrow, according to our scouts."
Lucina felt a stab of terror run through her. Why had she never considered that this was what was waiting for them at the end of the march? This was war. She'd been traveling alongside tens of thousands of soldiers since they'd departed from Brass Gate. Of course a battle was on the horizon. But it couldn't be anything like that nightmare she'd lived through… could it?
Careful to keep the fear from her voice, she asked, "And we'll be fighting in the middle of it?"
"No," he replied. Lucina was too relieved to care that he saw her release a shaky breath. "The Shepherds—despite having many veterans in our ranks—isn't technically a military outfit. We're an irregular force. A lot of us, like me, don't even have any actual military training. So, we're going to let the soldiers do their thing, and stay out of their way. But that doesn't mean we aren't going to take part in the battle.
"There's a village at the far eastern edge of the battlefield, just behind enemy lines. Gaius and Panne say that it's a secondary command post for the Valmese, and it's where the mages for that half of the army will be rotated through. It'll be our job to capture it."
"Who's got our backs?" asked Kjelle. She was the only one among them who seemed comfortable speaking of open warfare.
Robin ran a hand through his gray hair, thinking. "The closest ally we'll have is a Plegian infantry division… The Marionettes, I think they call themselves. Don't ask me why, I'm still trying to figure out Plegian army organization.
"But even though we won't be fighting side-by-side with them, they'll still be relying on us to deal with that village. I don't plan on letting them down. And while we won't be directly on the front lines, it's still going to be chaos. Chaos that I don't want you six adding to by running off and doing your own thing."
Lucina shook off her roiling emotions. "And if we don't agree with your orders?"
Robin sighed. "I'm more than happy to listen to suggestions, even if they're coming from you, princess. You can question me, we can argue, but once that's over, I need to know that if I send you off to do something, it'll get done."
"I'll listen to orders from my parents."
Robin massaged the bridge of his nose. "Chaos, princess. I'm not using that word lightly, and I think you know that. I can't guarantee that you'll be able to stay at Chrom's side the entire time, and you definitely won't be able to keep up with Sumia. In that event, we need to be able to work with each other."
"You gotta' be able to trust the person next to you in the line," Kjelle said, giving Robin a meaningful look.
"Yes, I get it. For some reason, none of you trust me."
Lucina couldn't help but tap her chin thoughtfully. It was the kind of exaggerated expression her sister would have loved. "As I recall, I made it clear why we didn't trust you back in Brass Gate."
"No," Robin shot back. "You didn't. All you said was that you thought I was a threat to Chrom. You were too busy threatening to kill me to explain why you think that."
Lucina grinned at him, making sure to show her teeth. "I wasn't threatening, I was making certain you understood that I was serious. When I threaten to kill you, you'll know, trust me."
Kjelle barked out a laugh. Putting down her ladle, she turned to face Robin, folding her arms. "Aren't you possessed by a demon? Yeah, sure is a mystery why we might think you don't have the best intentions."
Robin gave Lucina an annoyed glare. She set down her bowl and shrugged at him. "I'm not possessed by a demon." He looked up to the night sky, as if asking Naga for patience. "I spoke to Tharja about… what I did on the Bellicose. She's been freaking out, putting me through all sorts of test. I'm sure Noire knows a little about what that's like. She hasn't found any signs of demonic influence. So thanks for that, princess."
"But that doesn't change the fact that you cast a spell without the use of a focus," Laurent observed. "A fascinating phenomenon, but one that makes you particularly dangerous."
Robin raised his hand to forestall any more comments. "I haven't been able to do it again, so you're safe from my evil plans. But that's got nothing to do with your issues with me. You've all been wary of me long before I cast that spell. The princess here made that abundantly clear during the years she was following the Shepherds around, wearing that ridiculous disguise."
"From what I've heard, that isn't exactly an uncommon reaction to you," Noire piped up.
"But you already know me—the future me. I'm guessing I do something wrong that you lot haven't forgiven me for. So why don't you just tell me what I did, and we can work something out."
His words were met with a stony silence. The others all looked to Lucina. They'd agreed before coming back, that they would keep as much of their parents' personal lives as they could a secret. They didn't want to unwittingly sabotage the old Shepherds relationships with one another. They'd decided, shortly after being reunited, that what they knew of Robin—or, in this case, didn't know—was something else entirely.
Lucina didn't say a word. She didn't need to. As she watched, the tacticians eyes spark with realization.
"Unless… You don't know anything about me in the future, do you?" he asked slowly.
"Not a thing," she replied. "The first time I'd ever seen you was when I almost killed you fighting those Risen."
Robin blinked, obviously still trying to piece it together. "So… what? Am I dead? Or does that just means the future me found some way to get out of babysitting you brats." This elicited a cough of laughter from Kjelle.
Lucina stared at him levelly. "None of us had ever heard of you. Me and my… I used to go to bed every night listening to stories about the Shepherds from my parents. There were books and songs written about them. Even though I'd never met him before, I recognized Lord Virion from the moment I saw him. Same with Lady Cherche, Sir Gaius and Huntress Panne. But not you. I attacked you when we first met because I thought you were a Grimleal mage."
An uncertain edge had crept into Robin's voice. "So Chrom kept me out of his stories. That sounds like something I'd ask him to do."
"Really? All of them? Every single one of our parents just left you out? You were one of the Witnesses at my parents' wedding! I remember, I was there this time. You think they just… What? Forgot to mention that, too?"
Robin shoved his hands in the pockets of his coat. "Clearly you have a theory."
"Two, actually." She held up two fingers, ticking one down. "The old Shepherds purposefully erased your existence from ever being spoken of. I don't think I need to speculate why they'd do something like that. Needless to say, whatever the reason, it wouldn't color you in a… favorable light. It would make you someone to keep an eye on."
Robin swallowed visibly. He was looking pale in the flickering firelight. "And the second?" he asked.
At this, her Shepherds abandoned subtlety. Yarne's hand clasped around his Beaststone, shifting to a crouch from which he could better pounce. Noire drew her hunting dagger, as Laurent moved his spellbook to his lap. Kjelle strolled across to her tent, retrieving her axe. Even Severa moved from her statuesque position by the fire, reaching for the knife she'd hidden.
Lucina watched as Robin grew tense. His hand gradually migrated down to his belt, where his tome would have been, if he'd brought it with him. She'd been curious how he might react to what she was about to say. Now was as good a time as any to find out.
She put down her other finger and flicked her wrist, letting her dagger jump out into her hand. "Risen and Scourge weren't the only servants of Grima in our time. Even as they swarmed over everything like locusts, there were still some humans who abandoned us all to worship the Fell Dragon. The Grimleal were still feared, decades from now. They would sneak into holdouts, or pretend to be survivors, then sabotage their defenses and lure the Risen to their gates.
"We traveled back with the help of a device called the Gateway. It was a relic of Naga, like Falchion and the Fire Emblem. Grima knew what we were trying to do, and did everything it could to stop us. It failed, but perhaps not entirely. Perhaps one of the Fell Dragon's servants managed to slip past us, through the Gateway. Followed us all the way back here."
Robin stared at her in frank disbelief. "That's impossible."
"You were found the day the princess arrived," Severa pointed out. Her voice was as direct and steady as ever, but she still hadn't turned away from the fire. From where she was sitting, Lucina could see her friend's eyes were red and raw, glistening with equal parts grief and anger.
Robin shook his head, a little too emphatically. "Chrom and Lissa found me in a field. An intact field. The princess blasted a crater out of the countryside, and created a fulgurite pillar the size of a tree when she landed. I think someone would have noticed if I'd been in a similar position."
"Accept it didn't happen that way for all of us," supplied Kjelle, toying with her axe. "No big boom for me, no earthquake. No sign at all, actually. Just a lot of dead fish."
Laurent cleared his throat. "Nor for me. I arrived surrounded by sand, which proved to be a better material at discharging the energies from the Gateway. The only observable effects of the transportation was a disc of glass at my feet. It was covered by sand in a matter of days."
"But I was in a field!" insisted Robin. "The same as the princess."
"You could have just moved," Yarne pointed out. "Gotten away from where you landed. It isn't like anyone would think to connect you to a mysterious crater. You could have both caused earthquakes, but since you and the princess ended up so close to each other, it only seemed like there was one to the villagers near by."
"I'm no servant of Grima," Robin growled.
Kjelle shrugged. "Your coat says otherwise."
"But now you understand why we don't trust you," said Lucina, sheathing her dagger and scooping up her bowl of stew. "Allegedly, you don't know your past, but you're an important enough Shepherd that you should have at least been a part of ours. You want us to follow your orders? Okay. My parents trust you, so in battle, you have my word we won't jeopardize the overall mission just because it's you giving the commands. But don't for a second think this matter is settled."
She was surprised when Robin met her eyes, defiant. "You're wrong. I would never betray the Shepherds. Like I said in Brass Gate, you're incapable of seeing anything but threats. There's got to be a third option."
Lucina held his gaze. "I'm more than happy to listen to suggestions, even if they're coming from you, Master Tactician. But I won't hold my breath."